Taiwanese Patent Application Publication No. 485315 has disclosed a method in which popup icons prompts system messages with the following steps: intercepting a computer's system event; mapping the system event to a hotkey; treating the hotkey through the system BIOS; executing the hotkey's driver under Windows; and showing a popup icon corresponding to the system event on a display. The above approach, therefore, is limited to computers with BIOS systems and constrains its usage. A defect couldn't be overlooked.
Another Taiwanese Patent Application Publication No. 468109 discloses the hotkey defining system in which hotkeys are booted and operated simultaneously with Windows Operating System. This hotkey defining system comprises: an inputting module for receiving inputs from a pointing device or a keyboard; a booting module for enabling and opening a user's interface according to a control key of the keyboard, in which the user's interface is provided with a plurality of input selections corresponding to respective function keys of the keyboard; a defining module for opening a defined interface corresponding to a function key so as to build connection with a designated application program when an input selection is made by the pointing device, or directly build the connection with a shortcut when the pointing device is clicked and pulled to establish the shortcut to the input selection; and an executing module for opening or executing designated corresponding application program or shortcut based on the connections built by the defining module as soon as one of the function keys on the keyboard is depressed. Therefore, this hotkey system cannot function with only a single input devise such as a keyboard. A pointing input device requires a single input devise for proper hotkey functions. Thus, it poses a constraint for such hotkey system.
For most people, expansion of hotkey function is achieved by adding more hotkeys on a keyboard, resulting in cost increases for both hardwares and softwares. Thus, the present invention of constituting bootstrap hotkeys and its input system has an advantage of expanding hotkey function without being constrained by any system or increasing in cost.